PART ONE
Thursday, August 26 2004
"Thanks for lunch, Gwen," the pert, attractive redhead smiled as she followed the willowy blonde into the kitchen.
"I'm just glad to offer whatever help we can," Gwen replied. "Have Peter and Dad gone into the study yet?" She carefully shrugged the dishes out of her arms and onto the counter.
The redhead glanced over her shoulder into the dining room. "They're on their way," she said, off-loading her dishes too. She shook her head. "Peter's having trouble dealing with… you know, with Aunt May."
"Why, Mary Jane Parker," Gwen said, batting her eyes, "it's good to hear you get all compassionate about Peter. Had we taken bets two years ago, I could have made some real cash!"
"Well, I did marry the big lug," Mary Jane reminded her. She shook her head. "That makes me and Aunt May Peter's only living relatives. And she's cocooned in the hospital, dying of cancer."
"How is she doing? I mean, I know she's dying," Gwen clarified. "But… I don't even know how to ask," she murmured, frowning into the sink as she started running dishwater.
"She's elderly," Mary Jane observed. "Generally decrepit and weak as tea. So they can't really do chemo on her, and she probably wouldn't survive an operation. Curing cancer is abusive, and she simply can't handle any abuse. Peter is in the unenviable position of figuring out how to gentle her death."
Gwen shivered, even with her hands in the hot dishwater. "How is Peter holding up?"
"He just does what he does," Mary Jane sighed. "And he's dealing with it as best he can. He tries to keep a stiff upper lip, but… it's hard on him. Real hard. Right now he's trying to figure out whether we need to move in with her or not. He doesn't have the heart to send her to assisted living. She's a proud woman," Mary Jane nodded thoughtfully. "God, I hope I don't have to go through this with my family."
"I'm with you there," Gwen agreed. "I want Dad to last forever." She smiled slightly, then turned off the running water.
Retired police captain John Stacy ducked over his pipe, lighting it. He took a puff, then leaned back in his chair and regarded the young man pacing his office.
"You're welcome to sit on any of these conveniently placed chairs, Peter," Stacy said with a wry smile.
Peter grinned at him sideways, then leaned against the window frame and watched the street below. "Sorry, I'm just kind of twitchy. I can't spend all my time at the hospital or I'll just go crazy. When I'm there I wish I was somewhere else. When I leave, it's all I can think about."
"We can't have that," Stacy said, feeling old. "Hey, Peter, you seen the latest bizarre case?" He pretended to shuffle his papers to find it, then he picked up a newspaper article from the middle of his desk.
"Haven't paid much attention to the news," Peter admitted.
Stacy slid the paper over to his side of the desk. "Monday night. Three highly decorated SWAT officers, heroes in the war on drugs. Found skinned and decapitated, hanging from the rafters of a warehouse. Just barely enough skin on the hands to make an i.d."
Peter glanced down at the purring air conditioner window unit that was doing its best to struggle against the pervasive heat that lay in the city like a fever. "It's hot. Makes people do crazy things."
"Says here they were waylaid on the way home from the pool hall," Stacy murmured, glancing over the article. "Even decapitated, two of these men weighed in at almost three hundred pounds. That's pretty heavy. I figured they must have been shot first, so I did some asking around." He shook his head. "Killed with knives, at close range, by somebody who was awfully strong." He smiled to himself. "I thought you'd be interested."
"You sure do have a way of cheering a fellow up," Peter said with a slight smile. He let that sit for a moment, then shrugged. "Hey, thanks for having us over for lunch. I gotta go check on Aunt May." He straightened.
Stacy rose to his feet as well. "Thanks for coming over. And Peter? We're here for you. If you need us." His eyes were sober as he extended his hand. Peter clasped it, smiled at Stacy.
"I know. Means a lot," he said. Then he nodded, turned, and left the study.
xXx
"Can't even breathe in this heat," Mary Jane said over the blare of the car's air conditioning. It vomited hot air out now; it would be a few minutes before the car began to cool.
"August in New York," Peter shrugged. "Don't worry, you'll freeze when we get to the hospital." He tried a smile, then he paused. "There's a slasher nutcase running around New York decapitating and skinning cops," he added.
"Great timing," she muttered. "Stacy just can't resist baiting you with these weird cases, can he."
"He's still curious, that's all. He knows something's different about me, but he respects me enough to leave it at that. He's pretty cool," Peter said loudly, over the dull roar of air conditioning.
"Peter, I don't want you to throw yourself into something like this. Not with Aunt May in the shape she's in. You're distracted, honeybunch," she said seriously, "and that's a prelude to getting nailed by some psycho."
"At least it gives me something else to think about," Peter said tersely, eyes on the road. "Slashers, I can do something about. Aunt May… I feel so helpless," he admitted.
"Get backup, at least," Mary Jane said. "What about Strange or Illyana?"
"They're off on some training retreat together for two weeks," Peter sighed. "Valeria is currently out of town with no forwarding address. So Tandy is stuck taking care of business at the Planetary, and Tyrone is hip deep helping her."
"Yeah, but the list of your friends is longer than that," Mary Jane observed.
"True," Peter nodded. "At the moment, that's what I'm afraid of."
The subject dropped.
xXx
Peter looked down at the frail shell of a woman, elderly and wan. He gently touched the cool parchment skin on the back of her hand, but she did not stir. His eyes flickered to the machines that were hooked to her, to make sure she was still alive.
"We shouldn't disturb her, she's resting," Mary Jane whispered.
Peter barely nodded, then he let her guide him out of the hospital room. He took a deep breath. Then, together, he and Mary Jane headed for the parking lot.
"Damn," he muttered, something like rage twitching in his tone. "I gotta walk this off. I'll be home in a few hours."
"Normal men," Mary Jane replied with a slight smile, "go to the bar, kick a few back with their buddies, work in some serious commiseration, and wander home when they've forgotten their troubles."
Peter watched her for a moment.
She grinned, and slugged him on the arm. "I wouldn't trade," she said. "Go get em, tiger."
A smile ghosted behind Peter's serious features. "Don't wait up."
She turned, unlocking the car. By the time she slid down into the oven of the car's interior, she didn't have to look to see that he was gone.
"Be careful, and come home soon," she sighed to herself. "There. I said it."
She started the car, looked both ways, and pulled out of the parking space.
xXx
Peter glanced up and down the alley as the afternoon shadows lengthened. He twitched out of his shoes, ducked out of his shirt, hopped out of his pants. Piling his clothes in a bundle as he stripped off his socks, he flexed his forearms. Long scars along his wrists and forearms squirmed slightly; spinnerets on the underside of his wrists shaped a web goo as it sprayed, widening the focus to settle over the clothes. Deftly, multi-tasking effortlessly, he flipped the clothes over and swiftly wrapped them up.
He reached to the small of his back, where he had adhered a flat black mat. He peeled it loose and gave it a swift shake, and the leotard tumbled into shape from the square it had been folded into. He slid it on, and it stretched around his limbs to fit him snugly. As he pulled the mask up, he blinked to adjust to the sheer material against his eyes. Pale ovals on the dark mesh made his eyes seem huge.
Less than fifteen seconds after he had stepped into the alley, Peter Parker had become a spider ghost. He scooped up the bundle of his clothes, and sprang at the wall.
Peter wove through the shadows of the afternoon city, taking his time. The concrete and steel he touched sizzled with heat, the clouds had been burned away days ago and there was only the blue vault above. The sun bore down, its heat drawn into the bones of the streets and sidewalks and buildings of New York. Even at night, the heat breathed back out, and there was no relief.
Staying out of direct sun and sticking to the upper floors of buildings, the spider ghost sprang across streets, and sometimes fired thin strands of silk out of his forearms with a buzz like tearing silk. Less than a half an hour later, he dropped to the roof of a warehouse that was surrounded by police tape.
For a moment, he paused to smile to himself. Good thing his body was tough, much tougher than a human body. Otherwise, the thick strip of spider silk on his feet wouldn't be enough to keep him from getting blisters from the heat of the asphalt roofing. He prowled over to the shattered skylight, his senses unreeling around him like strands of a sensory web, looking for clues.
He squatted by footprints. Heavy. Probably over three hundred pounds. He let his senses play over the footprint; huge. Peter traced around it with his finger, but the mark was too indistinct to figure out more. He turned to the shattered skylight.
No rope fibers left where the men had been hanging. There was stress on the skylight frame, but no bits of steel, no sign of what sort of rope or cable held them. Peter made a note to ask the police about what had been holding the men when they had been found.
Peter straightened, taking a deep breath and looking around. A sudden wave of apathy hit him. "Must be the heat," he muttered. Then he stripped off the mesh, discarding it, and he pulled his clothes on. The mesh was already melting in the sun, once removed from his body.
He dropped through the skylight, landing easily several stories lower. Then he strolled to the back and let himself out, ducking the police tape and vanishing into the city's flowing restlessness.
xXx
Mary Jane heard the shower running. Glancing over at the half wall by the door, she saw Peter's wallet. She smiled to herself, and strolled into the bathroom.
"Make it snappy, you're steaming the place up," she said loudly through the shower curtain.
"Just finished," Peter said, turning the water off. He tugged the curtain aside and reached for a towel as Mary Jane looked him over. He grinned at her, blushing only slightly, and she felt a certain delight as an arch smile stole across her face.
"You are so bashful," she pointed out. "Seeing you back before dark is a pleasant surprise."
He wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped out of the tub shower. "Well, you know. My heart wasn't in it." He padded out of the bathroom, headed for the phone. "I'm going to see if Logan is in." He punched in a number from memory, then listened as the other end rang for a while before kicking into voice mail. His brows contracted as he listened through the message.
"Vacation?" he retorted. He hung up. "Who said he could go on a vacation? Maybe I need to go on a vacation."
"Got a suspect, Sherlock?" Mary Jane asked as she slid down onto the couch.
"Yes," Peter said grimly. "Yes I do." He paused. "I hope I'm wrong."
xXx
Heat.
Air sat in the apartment, unmoving. The windows, empty of glass, still failed to let the faintest breath of breeze in. Balefully glaring, the sun hung seemingly motionless to the west, burning through the frames of the windows.
Afternoon was sinking. The light was choosing sides, laying red and brilliant here and there, abandoning the rest of the room to shadow. Only one man was in the oven the unfurnished apartment had become.
Huge, he knelt in the center of the room on a thin mat, incense curling up around him. His eyes flicked open. They were deep, resonant, mysterious. His squarish head had iridescent dark hair, slicked back, and his hawkish features were drawn in concentration. His skin shone with sweat, but he didn't seem to feel the heat. He rose from his meditation, wearing only loose pants. His chiseled torso had the trim grace of a heavyweight boxer, and the muscles that packed on his frame bore scars from countless battles.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed his slicked hair back from his face once again, then he was fully present in the moment. He crossed the empty room to a table, and he picked up a cell phone. Placed a call.
He waited until the other end connected, then he smiled faintly. "Good afternoon, Natasha," he said in fluent Russian. "I need to see you. It is important. Can you meet me tonight?" He paused. "Good, thank you," he said. "Central Park, by the gazebo? I'll see you there at eight. Fine." He nodded to himself, and he snapped the phone shut.
Then he turned to the table behind him. Hatchets, knives, spears, katars. A neatly folded outfit.
He reached for his clothes.
xXx
A trim, lithe redhead with stylish short hair strolled down the path, alertly glancing around. She wore a sleeveless midriff-baring shirt, jogging shorts, running shoes. She paused when she saw the big man in the shadow of the gazebo.
He stepped into the fading light. Wearing a suit, with a stone set at his band collar. He smiled faintly, but that didn't improve the sinister cast of his features.
"What did you want to see me about, Kravinoff?" the woman asked in Russian.
"Natasha," he replied quietly. "I just wanted to have a conversation with you, that's all. I hear you married Stark," he continued, also in Russian.
"Your hearing is pretty good," she replied, arching an eyebrow.
"It has to be," he agreed. He approached her, and she stood her ground and watched him. "Natasha, this isn't easy for me," he murmured. "I have great affection for you, affection I would never ask you to return." He shrugged. "I wanted you to know that. I wanted to see you again. I won't be a nuisance. But… I wanted a chance to tell you that you are a strong, beautiful woman, and I could have been happy with you."
"What is this about, Kravinoff," Natasha asked, her eyes uncertain.
"I have a task to continue to completion," he replied. "I will rest easier having spoken with you. No regrets," he said, taking her hand and kissing the back of it as he gazed into her eyes.
Natasha blinked at him, questions half-formed in her mind, off balance. "Is the hunting good?" she asked, unable to come up with better at point-blank notice.
"Better than it has ever been," he breathed, his eyes bright. "Goodbye." He turned his back to her, and walked away.
Puzzled and wary, she watched him go.
